The Hell We Live In

Four

__Everyone settled down and began talking again. Only a bit more peacefully this time. Tails, Sonic, and Knuckles were laying down next to each other. Sonic was on his back, Knuckles was beside him while laying on his stomach, and Tails was laying on top on both of them. T-Pup was just walking around and getting attention from everyone. Amy, Sally, and Cream and Cheese were close together while Bunnie, Antoine, and Roter were grouped up. Rouge was still holding her diamond.
__At one point Cream was looking at Tails with concern. "Have you been feeling all right?"
__Tails moved his head to see past Knuckles' head, which was hurting his neck a bit. "Why?"
__Cream was stroking Cheese as she crossed her legs. "I heard about Perci the other day."
__"Fuck me," Tails muttered as he sat up and got off of Sonic and Knuckles. "She wouldn't leave me alone."
__"Did you actually call er a whore?" Bunnie asked with a frown on her face.
__"It was either that or punch her in the face, allowing society to look down on me even further."
__Rotor sighed. "I feel ya there. Just the other week I ran into some technicians trying to fix some water fountains in a supermarket. They were struggling so I gave my opinion about how to fix them and all of a sudden they get pissed off at me."
__Tails nodded in disappointment. "The normies think we smart alecks are trying to flex our knowledge to make them feel bad."
__"Zis is true," Antoine added. "I can't even talk about what I love about ze French culture in public without what you call normeez giving me ze weird look of annoyance."
__"Try being half robot," Bunnie groaned. "People are still giving me ugly looks about mah arm and legs. Ah have some other friends who have their own kids. Ah told em how me an Ant are having a hard time having a baby because of mah condition an they just laugh!"
__Sally looked at Bunnie with such a sad look. "That is just not okay."
__Amy looked angry. "You tell me if they laugh at you again. I'll beat their asses for you so you don't have to!"
__Knuckles made a loud sigh. "Fucked up lives we have."
__Tails flattened his ears. "I still have people who ridicule me for my extra tail."
__Rouge snorted. "People will randomly call me a slut out in public just because of my looks." She then scowled as she looked away. "Not my fault I got bigger boobs than all those other crazy bitches."
__"They're just jealous of you," Cream tried to reassure the bat.
__"Thanks, hun."
__Knuckles grunted as he sat up. "Practically lost my family, minus my wife, and my best friend was a giant lizard who I used to feed people who tried to steal the Master Emerald to."
__Antoine straightened. "You what?"
__Knuckles nodded. "His name's Chomps. He's some kind of dinosaur or whatever."
__Sonic just rolled over to look at Knuckles. "You wanted to feed me to him when we first met."
__Knuckles shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah."
__Sally brought her knees to her chest and hid her muzzle behind them. "The roboticization era was the main cause for all our pain and suffering."
__"Eggman to be more specific," Sonic corrected. "He's starting to get a little old, so hopefully he'll calm down some." It didn't sound like he believed what he said.
__Knuckles was shaking his head. "As cowardly as he is, even he would rather go down fighting than waiting for old age to take him."
__"He's not even that old yet," Rouge added. "He's probably only in his sixties now."
__"It wasn't just Eggman," Cream spoke out. "Some of the other villains were worse."
__"And fucked up," Tails added on.
__Sonic had laid back down on his back, not wanting to look at anyone. "Honeslty, some of the older villains were seriously mental."
__Tails rolled his eyes. "You think?" He asked sarcastly.
__"No..." Sonic was silent for a bit before explaining. "Some were pedophiles. I wasn't raped or anything, but I remember a few occasions where they tried groping me."
__This made everyone cry out as they stared at Sonic with shock.
__"What!?" Cream shrieked.
__"Why didn't you say anything before!?" Sally exclaimed.
__Sonic stayed still. "I don't know. Didn't want to make things worse I guess."
__"Well," Amy said quietly. "You're not the only one."
__This was when Sonic sat back up and stared at Amy. "What!?"
__Amy nodded. "Of course it would happen to me at one point." She was staring at the ground now. This made Cream and Cheese hug her tightly.
__Tails pulled his knees in and hugged them tightly. "Now we're back to being depressed."
__"Well, we really should be talking about stuff like this more often," Rotor suggested. "It'll help us feel better."
__"Yeah... I guess."
__Rouge suddenly looked up and frowned. "Aw dammit." Tails turned and saw a black hedgehog walking towards them. He stood not too close to the group and was looking at Rouge. The bat groaned as she stood up and walked up to the hedgehog. "They need us already?"
__The black hedgehog nodded.
__"Is it that stupid strip club mission they were bothering us about?"
__"Afraid so. I'm not looking forward to it either."
__Rouge took a second to turn and look at everyone. "Sorry guys. Shadow and I have to go now." As everyone gave their goodbyes Rouge started walking away with Shadow. The others continued to talk but Tails was able to overhear Rouge and Shadow.
__"This is just fucked up," Rouge started. "They only assigned us to this mission just because I look like I could be a pole dancer!"
__"And the fact that you already know how to pole dance and strip like a pornstar has nothing to do with it?" Shadow asked sarcastically.
__"Ugh!"
__"Well, we're not going to be there for long," Shadow assured her. "Afterwards we're going to that love hotel close by."
__"Why the hotel?"
__"You think I want to spend a whole night at that strip club once the mission is over?"
__"Ha! Trying to be some kind of alpha male, huh?" Rouge was giggling now. "You know you can just say you wanna fuck."
__"Watch it," Shadow warned.
__"No. You perform better when you're angry."
__Tails could not unhear their private conversation. He actually believed Rouge was lying about having sex with Shadow just to make Knuckles jealous. Apparently she wasn't. Actually it was concerning to him that basically everyone here, and definitely more of the other Freedom Fighters, were always seeming to have sex. Tails wouldn't even pleasure himself let alone fucking some nonexistent girlfriend. It wasn't that he was full on sex after marriage. Whatever happens would happen. But he just didn't seem too into anything at the moment. He would gladly fantasize and joke about it with his friends, though, but nothing else.
__T-Pup was slowly walking back to Tails. Its head was low as it rested it in his lap. Tails was a little concerned. His robot dog shouldn't be running low already. Something must be wrong with either T-Pup's battery or its charging station. The robot dog suddenly coughed up a small screwdriver (the kind you could fit in your pocket). Tails carefully picked it up and started to move T-Pup around. "You gotta stop eating my tools. Just cause they're bite size doesn't mean they're snacks."
__"What's going on?" Sonic leaned over and asked.
__"T-Pup isn't supposed to be running low this quickly," Tails explained. He had the robot dog lay on its back as he opened up the stomach where the battery would be with some wires. Everything seemed to be fine with T-Pup. It was the charging station that was wrong. This was weird. He checked the charging station yesterday morning and that was in perfect condition. He closed the stomach hatch back up and picked up his robot dog.
__"Sorry guys, I need to get back." He waited for everyone to say goodbye before walking back home. When he got home he went straight for his workshop. He set T-Pup on his desk and knelt down where the charging station was underneath. It was clear as day that someone had tampered with it. The wires were pulled out and the battery was damaged. This had to have been done sometime last night. Tails groaned. Maybe Perci is stalking me. He wasn't even mad at her. He was annoyed that he was going to have to fix the charging station... again.